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Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

Power is power.

The US has due process, judicial transparency, and free speech. There are still rich people that operate above the system, but they're largely still accountable and the free press can crucify them.

Authoritarian regimes have execution vans, no freedom of the press, no free speech, and a paranoid leadership that will jail or kill anyone who threatens their power. They lock citizens inside and prohibit capital flight.

No system is perfect, but democracy is strictly better.

I love China and the Chinese people, but the CCP is a drag on both.

I'm no fan of the party in power in the US, but I can campaign and speak out against them. I can raise money to oppose them. I can band together with like minded individuals to protest. That's superior to unilateral oppression.

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> No system is perfect, but democracy is strictly better

The US is probably the lowest level of pretend democracy, the next step is Russia tier theatrical democracy

"they're largely still accountable and the free press can crucify them".

Cute.

> I'm no fan of the party in power in the US, but I can campaign and speak out against them. I can raise money to oppose them. I can band together with like minded individuals to protest.

You can. Just not in any way that matters. And you won’t. Because that takes organization and all existing organizations that matter are captured by the system and novel ones would quickly be.

Perfect example: The US just launched a disastrous and illegal (both in their own and the UN system) war at the behest of a foreign power/influential minority against the will of its people and against its geopolitical interest. And the “opposition” does less than nothing. There is little anti-war protest and none of consquence.

Compare it with 2003 and earlier wars: The American public has been all but neutralized as a political force. Not that it could do much even then.

> That's superior to unilateral oppression.

You prefer the illusion of power.

> You can. Just not in any way that matters. And you won’t.

I’ve gotten language I wrote passed into state and federal law. The bottom line is a lot of people are too busy, lazy or nihilistic to call their electeds and show up to create political pressure. That’s unfortunate. But it also means that the payoff for relatively small amounts of effort are huge.

Did that language imping on the interests of America’s ruling elites, its security apparatus, or the interests of a certain entity in the eastern Mediterranean? No? Then we’re talking about entirely different things.

The “opposition” attempted to assert the congressional authority the branch is supposed over war powers, and were defeated because the American public gave majority power to the current majority whom rejected that authority to the executive branch to do whatever.

The “opposition” that oversaw the Gaza genocide.

No, they are, in the words of German Chancellor Merz, perfectly happy to let Trump do their “dirty work.” All the better if it blows up in his face.

In fact, that’s the whole reason why Trump is in office and not in prison. Because after October 2023 Zionists don’t accept “no” for an answer.

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